


take courage, brave heart

by decinq



Category: Agent Carter (TV), Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Captain America: The First Avenger, Gen, Peggy Carter as Captain America, Peggy!Cap, World War II, the Howling Commandos
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-08
Updated: 2014-10-08
Packaged: 2018-02-19 13:35:43
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,815
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2390219
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/decinq/pseuds/decinq
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After the Valkyrie goes down, Peggy takes up the Captain America mantle.</p>
            </blockquote>





	take courage, brave heart

**Author's Note:**

  * For [circulation](https://archiveofourown.org/users/circulation/gifts).



When Steve’s plane goes down, Peggy finally knows _._

 

She doesn’t like it, but she understands.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

They don’t announce Captain America’s death right away—there is paperwork to file, the public reaction to consider. The propaganda wheel has been turning for a long time, and where Project Rebirth is concerned, it wouldn’t be entirely tactful to mention Steve’s death while the war still needed to be won. 

 

As such, there is a holding period.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Commandos are all sitting in a single tent, a bottle of pilfered liquor between them, when Peggy finds them. Dugan looks up at her from his spot on the floor, holds her eye for a moment, and then holds the bottle in her direction.

 

“Sit,” he says.  “You’ve earned it.”

 

She takes an oversized swig of the liquor, and then another. Falsworth laughs and she passes the bottle to her right, and he takes it from her hand. “To Cap and Sarge,” he says, and all their mouths twitch to smiles, even though they shouldn’t.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It becomes a habit. The entirety of the Howling Commandos is put on hold temporarily until the SSR can decide on what to do. Peggy spends hours upon hours in communication with people in London, with people in Washington. It is exhausting—she’s already trying to survive in the middle of a war, and the false diplomacy isn’t making anything any easier. It’s frustrating, and she is tired, deep in her bones, but it helps, sitting with these men, all of whom have also lost their friends just the same way she has. It’s almost…nice.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

She’s definitely tipping the scales from sober to drunk when she says, “I kissed him, right before he got on the plane.”

 

They fall quiet, and she can feel five sets of eyes on her. She laughs to herself.  “I know it was idiotic, but I needed—“

 

“Best thing he could’ve asked for,” Gabe says, and it feels like a confession.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The first time Peggy watched someone get killed in front of her, a bullet was shot through a British Air Force commander right in front of her. She had screamed, then, but she never does again. She wipes the blood from her face, and gets back to work.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

When it is late and she has curled into herself to sleep, she will shake and shake, and she will think, _you have been through worse than this._

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The next time she drinks with the Commandos, she is able to swallow more liquor in a sip, she is able to have a few more turns with the bottle before she feels her face heat to red, before her hair is in her eyes. She can handle a bit more, the longer it goes on, but it still burns like fire the whole way down.

 

 

 

 

 

  

 

 

Morita passes her when she is done with a seemingly endless discussion with Colonel Phillips and says, “You ought to come by tonight,” but it sounds less casual than it normally would, almost nervous, but she nods anyway.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“We have to finish what we started,” Falsworth says, just as Dugan says, “It’s what they would have wanted.”

 

“We owe it to them,” Morita says, arms crossed over his chest.

 

“Alright,” she says. “If we were to pass on the Captain America title, which of the five of you are you suggesting? Because, and no offence, but none of you are quite the same…build as Rogers was.”

 

“That doesn’t matter,” Morita says. “The Captain cared about what was right and what was wrong, not about who could punch harder or run faster.”

 

“Plus,” Gabe says, “We were thinking, uhm.”

 

There’s a pause that’s frustrating in a way Peggy hasn’t dealt with in years, not since school, maybe. “You were thinking?” She asks, annoyed.

 

“We were thinking you could do it, ma’am.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

When Peggy was seven, she had tied her hair into perfect plaits all on her own. She had shown her mother, proudly, who had said, “Margaret, dear, this is wonderful work you’ve done,” and the pride had resounded through Peggy’s chest like a drum beat that, after that, never quite faded.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“I’m not—“ she says, because…honestly.

  

“If there’s anyone they would have trusted to do it, it’s you, Agent.”

 

She laughs, a bit breathless and a lot hysterical, and says, “I’m not even American, you idiots.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Since Sargent Barnes was Captain Rogers’ only listed next of kin, letters on both of their behalves are written and sent to a Ms. Rebecca Barnes of Brooklyn, New York. Peggy quite likes Brooklyn, and if this war ever ends, she thinks maybe she would like to visit Barnes’ sister, to explain, to learn.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

As it turned out, Howard Stark had plenty of other prototypes for the shield. Peggy, after deliberation and considerate practice, chooses one that is similar in form to Steve’s, if a bit smaller. Still round, and not made of Vibranium, but still worthwhile and manageable in its own way.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

She pulls her hair back behind her head, and presses her lips together tightly.

 

The uniform is…ridiculous.

 

She squares her shoulders and thinks, _take courage._

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

When she walks into the Commando tent, they fall silent, turn to look at her. Dernier’s eyes are wide, jaw slack, his mouth hanging open. Gabe smirks, and Dugan starts laughing.

 

“Don’t laugh at me,” she whines. When the rest of the Commandos join in, a group of highly specialized soldiers giggling like schoolgirls, she crosses her arms over her chest and adds, “I knew this was a bad idea—“

 

“No,” Falsworth says. “It’s not that.”

 

“You just,” Gabe says. “You look better than his star spangled ass ever did.”

 

“Oh,” Peggy says. “In which case,” she gestures and they giggle again. “Carry on. Show me what you’ve got on the Austrian storage unit.”

 

“Yes Captain,” says Falsworth, and they gather around the table that is centered in the room, and pour over plans for hours.

 

 

 

 

 

  

 

 

 

 

Here is something Peggy learnt to be true from a very young age:

  

For most of history, anonymous has been a woman.

 

 

 

 

 

  

 

 

 

“Perhaps—” she says to Gabe over HYDRA base plans, “I just figured that other parts of my life would take on more meaning, the closer I got to the center of it all.”

 

“I think, “ he says, looking at her with open eyes and a sad smile, “That if Rogers and Barnes taught me anything, it’s that no matter how strong you look, no matter how many people are finally looking at you, there can still be something that can haunt you, and make you absolutely miserable.”

 

She frowns, and after a moment says, “But they thought it was worth it.”

 

He smiles for real then, and says, “Well, yeah. Because it is, Peggy. It’s worth it.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Peggy knows that the feelings she had for Steve were returned. She’s not stupid, but she also was fortunate enough to witness Steve Rogers and Bucky Barnes in action together.

 

And so while she knows Steve liked her, she also knows that you can love something, and not love it all that much if you’re busy with other things.

  

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Eventually, she knows, that the grief will simply feel like something that happened to somebody else.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Russians and the Americans are racing each other into Berlin, and she imagines Hitler will be dead within the day.

 

She leads the Commandos into the last HYDRA base. The guards are shot down until the Commandos have their gun trained on every remaining HYDRA agent in the room, Peggy’s gun trained on Reinhardt.  Reinhardt laughs, “Nice outfit. Your Captain would be proud.” Peggy’s lips pull tight, but she can feel her eyes rolling before she thinks to react.

 

“These assets are now under the protection of the Strategic Scientific Reserve. They’ll be relocated and hidden out of sight, indefinitely, as will you.”

 

“Cut off one head,” Reinhardt says harshly, “two more shall grow in its place.”

 

Peggy smiles, smartly, and says, “Then I guess we’ll keep cutting them off.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Allied Victory is announced across the globe when the Act of Military Surrender is signed in Berlin on May 8th, and Peggy returns stateside on the 11th.  She and Howard take a car out to Camp Lehigh, her shield thrown into the back seat of the Ford. She’s stands on the track where, so long ago, Steve failed to keep up with the other men running laps.

 

“What now?” Howard asks, and he looks to her like she’s the only one who ever had any of the answers.

 

“We keep fighting the good fight,” she says.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

 

 

News of Captain Rogers’ death is announce on the 25th of May. They stretch the truth, a bit, and push the dates of both his and Sargent Barnes’ deaths so that they align with the end of the War in Europe.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“They’re saying he sacrificed himself to save the city,” Rebecca Barnes says over her mug of tea.

 

“That’s correct,” Peggy replies, taking a long drink of her Earl Grey.  Rebecca looks entirely like her brother, red lips and bright blue eyes, and Peggy knows that the debt America owes this young woman and her family can never be repaid.

 

“You should know,” Rebecca starts, “That if their places were reversed, my brother wouldn’t have even made it onto the plane. He would have jumped off a cliff right after Steve.”

 

Peggy smiles. “I’m sure you’re right.”

 

“I don’t mean it against Steve. If anything, my brother wasn’t even close to being as brave as Steve ever was. He just. He wouldn’t have wanted to be in a word that Steve wasn’t in, too.”

 

“Your brother was an incredible soldier, Ms. Barnes. I wish I’d known him longer, as I’m sure he was an incredible man.”

 

“Yes, well,” she says, “I never have heard of a hero who was happy. Those two deserved each other. Hopefully they’re safe and happy now, finally.”

 

“We’ll do well by them,” Peggy says as she stands. “You need to understand that I will do everything within my means.”

 

Rebecca smiles, but it doesn’t meet her eyes. “Thank you, Captain Carter.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“Even after he died, Steve was changing my life.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

 

The nation, as a whole, weeps for the loss of their hero. Vigils pop up all over New York, and crowds flood the streets of Brooklyn. Peggy watches people walk in the street, cheering and crying alike, from her fire escape and smokes half a pack of menthols and as the night falls, she lets herself finally cry for all that they’ve lost.

 

She thinks: _Take courage, brave heart. You have been through worse than this._

 

 

 

 

 

 

*

 

 

 

 

“And what does S.H.I.E.L.D. stand for, Agent Ward?”

 

“Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement, and Logistics Division.”

 

“And what does that mean to you?”

 

“It means someone really wanted our initials to spell out ‘shield _._ ’”

 

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> thanks to alex for the idea and for letting me run with it. check out alex's perfect and beautiful art on her [tumblr](http://felixandria.tumblr.com) . and then there's [me](http://captainamericaisavirgin.tumblr.com).
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
> the title is a paraphrase from book 11 of the iliad:
> 
> "be strong, saith my heart; i am a soldier; i have seen worse sights than this."


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